


Second Life, or, I was Reincarnated as an Elven Princess!

by rabitty



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Ancient History, Body Swap, Brought to Another World, D&D rip off, Dragons, Dwarves, Elves, Elves are Dicks, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, Folklore, Gender Non-Conforming Character, Gender or Sex Swap, Half-Elves, Isekai, Lizardfolk, LotR rip off, M/M, Magic, Magic School, Mpreg, Multi, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Mythology References, Orcs, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyamory, Prophecy, Queer Character, Queer Themes, Reincarnation, Royalty, Spells & Enchantments, War, band of five, gender fluid, magic college, moon elves, not really but kinda, societal polyamory, troll as pet, unusual reproduction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:14:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26070220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabitty/pseuds/rabitty
Summary: What would you do if you were given a second chance?Tim was a nobody during his first life on Earth. Being the only queer kid in a small Arizona town in the ’90s wasn’t exactly a piece of cake: combine that with being an orphan, having no friends and being completely broke, he’d lost hope for the future. He was miserable until one day, he was reincarnated as Alvanue, the only daughter of the Elf Lord Githanduin. Now, Alvanue has everything a princess could want: family, comrades and an entire world of magic and mystery to explore!
Kudos: 8





	1. Offer

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so I'm reposting this here from my wordpress: https://rabitty.wordpress.com/  
> If you want to see some of the artwork for it, go check it out! Any feedback is accepted, please enjoy!

“Thus, the Fifth Elder embraced them once more and spoke. ‘For that my children have been given so worthless a thing, I shall give you another’, and the Fifth Elder put a blessing upon the Children of Dusk and their line. With strange powers flowing through them, Githendril and Yisendril woke the ice and rock in the growing dark and built a hall of which there was and is and shall be no equal. And so, weakened by the giving, the Fifth Elder lay down to rest and fell into eternal slumber. The first day was ended and the first night was come upon Creation.”

-‘Song of the Elders’, Circa -1392 PC, Author Unknown.

All was shadowed in the dim light of the midnight sun, but the two elves huddled behind the rocky ledge had no trouble spotting their prey. The blizzard rolling in did more to hinder their vision than the lack of light. There had been reports of a disturbance from the isolated holding of Feolduen to the north: missing livestock, damaged property, and a lingering stench even the cold failed to mask. These were all signs that lead to one possible conclusion.  
They were dealing with a troll.

Three trolls, as it turned out. The two elves had spent the better part of a week tracking their prey through the barren tundra of the Northern Plains until they had them cornered against the foothills of the Amrothuilye, the great mountains at the Edge of Night. It was boring, miserable work this deep into winter; they had had nothing but hard tack to eat for the past few days and even the nicest bedroll did little to improve upon the harsh cut of the frozen plain. All of that was forgotten in the present moment, both elves focused on the task at hand. After so long doing nothing but tracking these stupid animals, their minds were primed for action.  
The smaller of the two elves, Alvanue, crawled to the top of their hiding spot for a better view. Silver hair whipping with the force of the coming storm, her keen eyes locked on their quarry a hundred feet ahead. Her nose wrinkled at the stench thrown back at her with the wind. Two hulking shapes dismembered the remains of a muskox, each easily forty stone heavy and ten feet tall, while the third lay down beside them. Their camp, if one could call it such, was littered with the frozen skeletons of half a dozen animals and what looked like several humanoids. It was surprising that they had managed to make their home here for so long without detection, but then again, the winter storms had been much fiercer that season. Even the elves struggled to make it through them unscathed, let alone the nearby human refugees.

The trolls were completely occupied with mangling their misbegotten meal while their companion rested. It was the perfect time for Alvanue to make her move. With a silent motion to her fellow tracker, she put on her pack and crept closer. In more clement conditions, it would be ease itself to knock an arrow and fell the trolls where they stood. With the winds as strong as they were, however, she was like as not to take out her own eye as hit her target.

Edhalan, the second of the two elves, followed close behind as she edged around black spurs of ice and stone as they drew near the unsuspecting beasts. If one had never seen a troll before, one would be forgiven for mistaking it for an exceptionally tall, ugly old man covered in hair if seen at a distance. The difference would only become clear upon closer inspection: long, sharp teeth set in a twisted, pale-skinned face, and hungry yellow eyes. Three fingered hands tipped with black claws and matted yellow-white fur that covered its body from head to toe. One of the few predators in these lands aside from ice bears and direwolves that might threaten the humans and their elven protectors, they were considered all the more dangerous for their near human intelligence.

Silthonduen had made an easy peace with the lowland packs in the past, those which bothered no one so long as they had enough to eat. These three must have been of the old stock, come down from their fastnesses in the Amrothuilye. Hard winters tended to draw them out of the mountains in search of deer and…other sources of meat.

In Alvanue’s limited experience, their lowland cousins could be rather docile creatures, protecting the roads and open country from other animals in exchange for salted beef and metal trinkets. These highland trolls, on the other hand, were nothing but trouble and posed a great threat to lesser fortified human settlements in the shadow of the mountains. It was her people’s duty to root them out and extinguish them before the infestation spread. 

Alvanue and Edhalan circled round to a low rise not ten feet from the trolls, careful all the while to keep downwind of them lest they be scented too soon and spoil the hunt. Edhalan unstrung his bow and tucked it away in favor of the short sword at his hip. Meanwhile, Alvanue reached up to what might look to anyone from modern Earth like a gun holster. It was strapped tight over her armor, not in any danger of sliding across the snow slick metal. She pulled free two Silverwood wands from it, one for each hand, and looked over to her partner. A nonverbal conversation passed between them as the wind howled over that benighted waste. Finally, he nodded. Quick as anything, they vaulted over the slope and began their attack.

One of the beasts was felled before it could even realize there was a threat. The wet plop of its head hitting the icy ground was what alerted the other to their presence. Roaring in rage, it raised a severed ox leg high in the air and charged them. Alvanue fired blasts of violet lightning from her wands at it but the troll blocked them with the leg. The already mangled limb exploded in a shower of burnt flesh and smoking bone, doing more harm to the two disgusted elves than it did the creature.

Edhalan swung his sword in a low arc as he sprinted forward, aiming to gut the beast in one swing. To his detriment, he was too focused on his form to notice the shaggy arm rushing straight for him. Ducking much too late to avoid it, he was slapped square in the face by the trolls open handed paw, his nose crunching audibly. The usually graceful elf flipped head over heels with the force of the strike, landing in a snow drift a good seven feet behind him. On any other occasion, Alvanue might have laughed at the sight. Regrettably, she had no time to do so. She still had an enraged troll and its miraculously still sleeping packmate to deal with, and now she was all on her own.

With the loss of her committed muscle, she had to think a little more strategically than she had otherwise planned. She faced her snarling opponent, purple eyes locked with yellow, as they sized each other up. Keeping her distance, she tried to weigh her options. Edhalan was down for the count which nixed any pincer attack she might have employed. The wands she was using were not the best quality, but they should have enough of a charge to last a couple more spells as powerful as the ones she had obliterated the troll’s dinner with. After that she would have to tap into her own mana reserves, a dangerous prospect this far from home, and make use of the two blades secured to her thigh. She could continue like this and lead the troll away from Edhalan while he recovered, but that still left him at the mercy of the sleeping one should it wake up. The sound of roaring jolted her from her calculations.

The troll saved her from making the first move by falling to all fours as it started galloping straight at her. She waited until the last possible second before rolling out of the way, sliding to a stop in time to see the stupid thing run headfirst into a piece of rock jutting up out of the earth. The thing sat dumbly where it had fallen, shaking its head and moaning in pain. Knowing an opportunity when she saw one, Alvanue flicked both wands at its exposed neck, a string of curses spilling from her lips.

Crackling bolts of energy the color of a bruise arced between her and the thing, setting her hair on end. The troll, still recovering from its self-inflicted blow to the head, was flattened against the dark stone, dingy mane burnt to nothing and flesh turned to ashes under the force of her spells. It did not have enough time even to scream before Alvanue’s magic had sliced through its neck and its ugly head was rolling across the earth to join the first.

Pausing a moment to catch her breath, Alvanue took stock of things. Two down, one to go. Edhalan was still lying crumpled in the snow pile he had been slapped into. Most people would be worried after someone took a hit like that, but she knew that he was made of tougher stuff. His nose was most definitely broken but it would be shameful for an elf to be killed or even majorly hurt by something so minor. He would hurt the following day, his pride more than anything, but it was nothing a good ribbing could not cure.

The wand in her left hand was fried, the pale wood gone smokey and the tip sparking with manaburn. Annoying, seeing as she would have to carve more when she returned home, and they were time consuming to bind, but it was no matter. The righthand wand still felt like it had a good bit of energy to it, so she dropped the dead one and replaced it with a dagger.

Thus rearmed, she approached the last of her targets. She stepped gingerly over the corpses of what looked like a human shepherd and one of their flock to crouch down next to the prone body of the third troll. It was larger than the others, most likely female. They tended to put on more weight to better feed their pups. The fur was more gray than white, a common feature among lowland breeds. It was strange to see trolls from the plains and those from the mountains interacting. Tentatively, she struck out with her dagger to knick it with the tip of the blade. The creature did not move. Emboldened but still wary of a trick, she pushed it on its back with the tip of her boot.

And she realized why it had not reacted.

The thing had been gutted, most likely by the two trolls she and Edhalan had dispatched. A territory war, a show of dominance or just simply a lack of food, she did not know why they had done it, but it was still disturbing. Trolls rarely harmed their own kind, even the blood thirsty beasts from the mountains. The body was not frozen stiff, so it had been killed recently. Maybe even in the final hours when she and Edhalan were closing in on this location.

Its face was wizened and discolored with windburn, the mark of an old female in its second or third decade, probably of an age with Alvanue herself. Thinking that, she could not help but pause. Little things like that had a funny way of popping up in her life to remind Alvanue of the differences between elves and the mortal races. This creature had already been at the end of its natural life before it was butchered. By elven standards, Alvanue was still considered a child even at 34 years of age.  
With gentle hands, she slid the troll’s milky white eyes closed and patted a hand on the part of its chest that had not been ripped open.

“Sleep well, old girl,” she said, and made the Elder Sign in respect.

She was interrupted in her ritual by the strange cooing of something to the poor creature’s right. From where she had pushed its body, she could see that the troll had been lying atop a narrow crag in the rocky ground. Easy enough to miss even with her sharp vision except for the hint of movement she could detect in the gloom.  
Reaching a hand in, she felt something soft and warm and slid the thing out of the hiding spot to better see it. She could not say what she had been expecting to find, but it was definitely not a troll pup, dangling from its back foot where she held it in the air.

The little troll, its fur brilliant white with youth, gurgled at her with its pink, toothless mouth. It continued to dangle there for a moment longer before Alvanue collected herself and held it more securely in her arms. She looked down at it before turning her head to look back at what must have been its mother. She stayed like that for a while, the pup making happy noises in her arms and while she stared contemplatively at the gored remains of the female, thinking of things past and people long gone. The groaning from behind her as Edhalan pulled himself free of the snow was what eventually snapped her back to the present.

The dark-haired elf sat up woozily, a hand pressing delicately into the bloody skin under his nose.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” she said. “Took you long enough to wake up.”

“Guh,” he said intelligently.

“Don’t worry, I took care of the other troll for ya.”

She stood and grinned at him. Edhalan glared up at her with his head cradled in his hands.

“I still got the first one, that means we’re 1-to-1,” he said.

“2-to-1,” she corrected smugly, motioning at the old female’s body.

His eyes widened. “Wha- That doesn’t count! I was knocked out!”

“It totally counts, don’t be such a whiner.”

“It so does not, that isn’t fair! I didn’t even get a shot at it.” Still a little wobbly, he managed to pull himself up off the ground without falling over. He was in the process of knocking excess snow off his armor when he realized she was holding something.

“Alvanue, what is that?”

The pup reached up and started playing with a lock of hair falling over her shoulder, fascinated with the silvery strands. “Hmm? Oh, just a baby troll.”

“Well, put it back!” Edhalan said.

“Where?” she asked and motioned from its mother’s body to the stormy plains around them.

“I don’t know, wherever you found it, asshole!”

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’?”

“I mean no, I’m not putting it back.”

“Alvanue, there’s no way you’re taking that back with us.” Trying to look serious and grown up, he put his foot down defiantly. “I forbid it.”

“Oh, screw you, Edhalan. I’m the boss here. What I say goes and I say the baby’s coming with us,” she said. It did nothing to lessen Edhalan’s ire that she was completely ignoring him in favor of mumbling nonsense at the happy little pup in question.

“Technically, his majesty is my boss and part of my job is to make sure you don’t do dumb shit like, oh, I don’t know, exactly what you’re doing right now!”

It was true that Edhalan, while a very capable elf in his own right, had only gone out on this mission because Alvanue was assigned it. His family had served under hers since the coming of the elves to Endrillond and he executed his duty with no small amount of pride. When he had been asked to serve as companion and guard to the young Silthondrim heir at the celebration of her tenth year, he felt nothing but honor as he pledged his loyalty to her. It was times like these that he regretted ever accepting the position and considered pursuing a different career entirely.

“Well, what are you going to do with it, huh? You gonna raise it? His majesty might be pretty lenient when it comes to his only child, but I highly doubt he’d be alright with this. What do you have to say to that?.” If reason did not work, he would try fear instead. His majesty Lord Githanduin was a good elf and an even better ruler but Edhalan could not foresee him tolerating a troll being brought up under his roof.

“I say tough shit, the old man’ll get over it.”

Edhalan scowled at her and said nothing, which she took as a victory.

Alvanue leaned down to grab some of the less ragged cloths left by the trolls’ victims and wrapped them around the little pup. It was getting colder as the storm rolled in and besides, the people they had once belonged to had little use for them now. She marked the spot on her map so locals could come and collect their loved ones come spring. Solemnly, she made the Elder Sign once more with Edhalan following suit. Whoever they were, their resting place deserved reverence.

They went to first one and then the other of the decapitated trolls, the one felled by Alvanue still smoking ever so slightly. Edhalan cut off the left ear of each and handed them to Alvanue. As she tucked them away into her pack, he brought his face almost nose to nose with one of them. He thought that they smell even worse in death, no minor feat.

“Why the Elders saw fit to make such ugly bastards, I’ll never know,” he muttered.

“I don’t know, the little ones are pretty cute. Aren’t you, you itty bitty little baby,” Alvanue said and nuzzled into her chirruping pup.

Edhalan rolled his eyes and wound up for another tirade.

He continued to lecture her and call her rather rude things as they made their way back to their mounts. She simply ignored him.

They had tied up the two snow deer in a little alcove tucked away from the wind and snow, far away from the troll camp. If the trolls had smelled the animals before the attack, they would have been made. The animals were too well trained to shy away from them as Alvanue and Edhalan came close, but they churned the snow with their hooves in agitation at the scent of troll blood and death on their riders.

Edhalan soothed the deer while his silver haired companion loosened their bonds, a hand rubbing slow circles on each of their foreheads.  
Once everything was in order, he hopped up into his saddle and took up the reigns. He waited while Alvanue made a hasty sling from the cloth she had salvaged and secured the pup to her chest. After that, they took off into the snow, the deer as quick as the coming storm.

The trip back to more civilized lands was a surprisingly quick one considering the amount of time it had taken them to hunt down the trolls. A day and a half of hard riding passed quickly with the two elves intermittently bickering and fretting over Alvanue’s new pet. They stopped only to water the deer and feed the pup their rations mixed with melted snow. Thankfully, it seemed to be old enough to take regular food as well as its mother’s milk. Unlike its rescuers, it was more than pleased to eat the stale hard tack.

For all his lecturing and whining, Edhalan came around to the creature, even holding it when Alvanue went off to prepare its food. She knew the older elf had a soft spot somewhere underneath all that blustering and elven self-importance.

When the midnight sun was at its peak, nothing more than a suggestion of watery light on the horizon, the two elves spotted a great hall in the distance. 

Silthonduen, home to Alvanue’s people since the beginning of Creation if you believed the legends, was a complex of elegant structures clustered above a black sand beach. The main hall was carved into the hill upon which it sat; columns of pale stone cut to mimic the trunks of Silverwood trees with a dome of eternally frozen ice. Impossibly thin bridges connected high towers and wide pavilions cut into the rocky side of the hill, carved with depictions of heroes from ages passed. All that splendor set aglow with the cold, white radiance of fixed magelights, hovering like captive stars amongst gardens and domes made the place seem otherworldly from afar. Even after all her years there, it was still a breathtaking sight and she paused to admire it.

Edhalan prodded her to action, impatient to get home and get clean, so they rode their mounts on up the steep hill. Guards saw them not long after they crested the rise and they found the gates open in welcome by the time they had reached the outer walls.

“Welcome home, my lady,” said one of the guards as he took her mount’s reigns.

“How’s it hanging, Quelidrome,” said the lady in question, sliding off her deer in and unladylike fashion. She walked with the guard as he led the animal to the stables.

“Well, my lady, thank you.”

“Hey, I totally forgot, who won the thing, the-” she snapped her fingers, “-the duel?” Before she had gone off on her assignment, the hottest drama of the season had been the love triangle brewing between three of the elves at court. The last she had heard, Uesildan the baker had challenged Mithalene the harpist to a duel over lovely Finnue’s hand in marriage. Mithalene had a much better hand at swordplay but to be completely honest, Alvanue would give anything to see Uesildan smack that smarmy little harpist off her high horse.

“Begging pardon, my lady, but was no duel. The day after you rode out, Uesildan and Maid Mithalene made their peace and both took Finnue’s hand in marriage.”

There was a beat of silence.

“You’re shitting me.”

“No, my lady, I dare not.”

“Well fuck.” She supposed she should not be surprised. Horny little bastards, she thought to herself.

“Indeed, my lady, I suppose they have by now.”

She did not wait for Edhalan to see to his own steed and instead rushed off towards the main hall, throwing a hasty farewell over her shoulder to Quelidrome. If she managed to sneak the troll pup up to her rooms without her sire or one of his tattletales from seeing it, she might yet be able to keep it.

“Yes, hi, hello, ‘scuse me, coming through!” she said as she cut off a cluster of servants and courtiers from welcoming her back. They were hardly offended; they had all had plenty of time to acclimate to her peculiarities.

The private quarters for the ruling family were at the top floor of the main hall, set deep in the east wing. She took the stairs three steps at a time, vaulting her way up at a blistering speed. One might worry for the small, defenseless creature swinging wildly in its sling as she ran. If one could read its mind, however, one would find that it was having the time of its life, its little fuzzy body wriggling in delight.

She skidded into the hallway leading to her private chambers, startling a servant so badly she nearly tossed her mop into the air. Speeding through an apology, she sidestepped the poor elf and pushed through the doorway to her bedroom. After nearly two weeks of travel, she was finally back in the relative comfort of her own space. The door closed with a thud behind her and she slid to the floor with a sigh.

As she relaxed after her long journey, she watched the little troll wriggle free from its sling and crawl around the room. It looked even smaller in context to the cavernous space, tiny and pale against the flagstones. While it investigated the underside of her bed, she let her thoughts wander to the first time she had ever stepped foot within these rooms. 

With her sharp elven mind, she could remember most things down to their most minute detail. So too could she remember the first time she had seen this place, as well as the rest of Silthonduen.

Alvanue Silthondrim, child of Githanduin, Sildathlene and Nalendril, heir to Silthonduen and heir potential to all of Endrillond, was not all that she seemed. This was not her first life, in fact it was not even her first world. She had lived as Alvanue for thirty-four years, nearly twice as many as she had in her original life on Earth. In her first life, in a world as strange to her now as Endrillond had been to her three decades before, she had been a run-down college student named Tim.

She had not been happy on Earth. Tim had lived his life like a rat in a trap. He grew up in a tiny, nowhere town outside of Tucson and never quite managed to leave no matter how much he wanted to. He was different from others and people his age could sense that, so they mocked him, beat him and did their best to make his life a living hell. They succeeded. The most Tim ever accomplished in his life was working his way through a degree that he did not care about at a community college as a janitor. The only thing Alvanue could feel aside from numbness when thinking back on those years was a complete disconnect from who she had been. As Tim, she felt detached from everything and everyone around her. With no friends, two dead parents, and few aspirations, Tim had felt as if his life was over before he had even reached the age of 18.

Alvanue’s memory as to how she died, or even if she died, was hazy at best but she surely must have. She had reincarnated after all. Just a day like any other, Tim was hurrying from a disappointing meeting with his advisor to clock into work when he started to feel odd. It was the sensation one gets when one sleeps on an arm, a leaden buzzing that traveled up his body from his feet all the way to the backs of his eyes. Barely managing to keep from falling over, he was able to get to a bench before he lost all control of his body. Everything after that was indistinct and foggy. What he did remember with perfect clarity was his rude awakening in a strange new world, where things that should not exist did and everything he knew was challenged.

Upon opening his eyes, the first thing that came to his attention was that it was very dark. The second was that he was drowning. For a moment, thoughts still sluggish, he had thought that he might have fallen asleep in the bath, before he remembered his collapsing act on campus. Reaching out with blind hands through the warm water surrounding him, his hands struck the smooth, slick sides of what had felt like a barrel. Kicking out with his feet, he felt the same below. He had scrambled for a lid to no effect, while the lack of air became increasingly uncomfortable. The inside of the thing felt uniform from within, nothing but smoothly sloping sides with no obvious opening.

Panicking, he had decided to see if he could somehow tip it over. There was just enough space for him to extend his legs partially to his right. If he braced himself, he could push out against the opposite wall and hopefully destabilize it. He was not that big of a boy, but it was still difficult to maneuver into place.  
Bracing, he had thrust his hands out and pushed with all his might, but his container hardly budged.

He had twisted around and tried the other side. Is it my imagination, he had thought, or was there a little bit of give to the wall beneath his palms on that attempt? Giving up on pushing the barrel over, he had started slamming his fists as hard as he could against the barrier. His lungs were burning with lack of oxygen and his head felt like it was full of helium, but he had kept going, growing more and more frenzied with each strike.

It was as he had felt himself slipping into unconsciousness that he, literally, saw the light. A pinprick hole, as it turned out, but in such total darkness it might as well have been the noonday sun. Gathering the last of his strength while black spots began to bloom across his vision, he tore at the hole in a desperate attempt to widen it. The material was reluctant to give in, tough and almost woody, but he had the strength of a madman in those final seconds before he lost consciousness once more.

As he faded out, he felt his arm burst out fully into chilly air. Something shifted and then his body followed his arm as he slid out in a tumble of wet limbs onto a cold stone floor. He had been vaguely aware of several people crowding around him and then his eyes slid closed, the curtains of his mind closing.

The following events were hardly as traumatic but no less to him at the time. After a while, he awoke cradled in the laps of two ethereally beautiful people. He would later blame the fact that he did not notice their strange coloring and long pointed ears on shock from his near-death experience. At that point he believed them to be doctors or something to that effect.

They had spoken quietly to him, though he could not recall what precisely they said, and carried him to Alvanue’s room. He spent the next several days there while he recovered and learned about the place he had come to find himself in. It was with no little surprise that he realized that they were not human, and neither was he. Nalendril and Sildathlene, the two elves who had taken care of him, explained many things to him. Primarily, that he himself was an elf, and that they were his parents. Or at least, two of his parents.

What he came to find out is that elves have a very particular way of reproducing. Instead of growing a child inside their body, one or more elves pray over one of their sacred trees until a child is produced. Nalendril and Sildathlene were his dams, those who prayed and gave up a portion of their mana so that he might live. The then absent Githanduin was his sire, rather the elf who looked after the two dams while they worked and contributed a smaller portion of his mana to the effort. In processing all that information, the being who was once known as Tim came to understand that he was very far from home indeed.

He had found himself in the body of an elf princess that had quite literally hatched from a tree. That he was a suddenly a girl after spending his previous lifetime as a boy was less startling than the fact that he was a mythical creature all of a sudden. During his time on Earth, Tim had never quite felt right as a boy. He had been mocked as gay and many more graphic names besides though the terms never seemed to fit him quite right. Aside from Tim’s initial surprise upon learning that he was no longer physically a boy, the change did not bother him much. In the years since, Alvanue had come to accept her life and body and was much happier overall than she had been as Tim.

A positive aspect to hatching from a tree was that she had no need to waste time learning the basics of her new life. In the process of forming their children out of their mana, elves shared their language among other things over the course of the child’s long gestation. They informed her that she had been born several years too early, however apart from being a little small, she was perfectly healthy.

The years that followed as the being now known as Alvanue grew into her new life were the best of her existence. The eighteen odd years she had spent as a human were lonely and dark. In Endrillond, she had everything she had been missing: friends, family, purpose. She felt a deeper connection to this world and all its fantastical glory than she ever had for the shithole town she had once called home in Arizona.

Without realizing it, years had turned into decades had turned into more than a quarter century and suddenly here she was. A good, quiet life well lived in the lap of luxury with hardly a care in the world. She was grateful, incredibly so, for all her many blessings in this new life yet she craved more.  
A knock at her door made her jump up from the floor. Eyes darting around the room yet failing to locate her erstwhile troll, she prayed under her breath that it might remain hidden and looked to see who was there.

The newly wed Finnue, marriage tattoo visibly fresh on his collar bone, stood outside. Alvanue could not help but think uncharitably that he did not seem worth the trouble of a duel. Then again, she thought, Uesildan and Mithalene never went through with it, did they?

“I apologize for the intrusion, my lady, but his majesty requests your presence in his study,” said Finnue.

“Right now? Can it wait?” she asked. She was still grimy from the trip and there was troll fur all over her armor.

“His majesty did not specify an exact time, but if I were in your position, my lady, I would not keep his majesty waiting. He seemed…not in the best of moods.”  
Well, isn’t that ominous.

“Guess it can’t be helped. You said he’s in his study?” If he was upset with her over something, it would be better to get the scolding over and done with.  
“Yes, I believe so, my lady.”

“Cool, thanks.” She made sure the door closed behind her as she stepped into the hall. It would be a disaster if the troll pup got out unsupervised, especially if she was already in trouble for whatever reason.

Pausing beside him, she turned to address the dainty elf. “And hey, congrats on the wedding. Don’t let them wear you out too much.”

She was gifted with the sight of Finnue’s cheeks flushing several shades darker than their usual lilac before she was off to see her sire. Just because elves reproduced using trees did not mean that they never indulged in the pleasures of the flesh.

***

“Enter,” called a deep voice, muffled by wood.

Pushing open the massive doors, she stepped into her sire’s chambers. They were expansive, as was to be expected of the head of a great house and the ruler of a realm, but hardly ostentatious. Beautifully built but stripped of unnecessary ornamentation, the rooms were much like the lord who kept them.

Said lord, his majesty High Lord Githanduin of Silthonduen, sat with his back to Alvanue, bent over his writing desk. Stacks of parchment and official looking scrolls rose up on either side of him, spilling out onto the floor around him. It was the only part of her sire’s chambers that was neat and tidy.

“I shall be with you in a moment, child. Please be seated,” he said and waved a hand vaguely behind his back.

She looked around for a chair or stool to sit on and, finding none, balanced awkwardly on the edge of a squat table. It groaned under her weight but held, so she figured it would have to do. Her sire spent the next several minutes finishing his work before finally turning to her. At 513 years of age, he prided himself on not looking a day over 150. With his black hair, ashen gray skin and sharp features, he looked nothing like his daughter but for their eyes, his and hers both matching shades of dark violet.

He was using those eyes that so resembled hers to stare at her, silent and judging. She fidgeted a bit on her perch, from physical discomfort as much as emotional. Despite being well into her third decade, he had a way of looking at her that made her feel as if she were a newly hatched elf all over again.

“You, uh, wanted to talk to me? Sire?” She spoke simply to break the interminable silence between them. He reacted to the sound of her voice as if being roused from deep thought.

“Hmm, yes. Yes, child, I did.” He said, and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth before frowning.

Even with her elven resistance to the cold, Alvanue felt a chill set all the fine hairs on her arms to standing at the look on her sire’s face and the graveness of his tone. She thought back to the wording of Finnue’s summons and the chill worsened. Her sire rarely acted like this with her but for the few occasions when she did something to truly upset him, like when she set Lord Galastir’s robes on fire completely on accident or when she broke his favorite hunting horn.

Thinking fast, she decided to employ a strategy used since her infancy. That is, she began to whine. “Is this about the troll pup? Edhalan, that little snitch, he tattled, didn’t he? I promise I was gonna ask your permission to keep it, Dad, honest, but I kinda got sidetracked. You’ve got to see it, though, it’s so cute, please can I keep it, please please please-“

For a moment, the older elf looked genuinely caught off guard, ruining his previous air of solemnity. He held up a hand to stop her mid-sentence before shaking his head in confusion.

“Troll? What- no, I do not think I want to know.” Clearing his throat, he seemed attempt to fix the young elf with a more serious look. “No, Alvanue, this has nothing to do with whatever charity case you’ve brought home, this time. And for the last time, desist in calling me ‘dad’, I am your sire.” Githanduin sighed and ran a hand through his hair, suddenly looking old and tired. “No, I wanted to speak with you of Lyonesse.”

It seemed it was Alvanue’s turn to look confused.

“Uh, Lyonesse?”

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“Are you familiar with it?”

“Well…” she trailed off in thought, finger tapping her chin. “I know it’s a part of the Union, it’s a monarchy, it’s got a bunch of humans, not too many elves. Pretty good ale, I guess, but personally I prefer the stuff that comes outta Hyperborea, those guys really don’t mess around-”

“Yes, thank you. That is about as much as I expected.” Her sire interrupted with another sigh. “Have you never heard of the academy at Avalon? St. Gildrin’s, it’s called.”

Alvanue looked at her sire as if he had grown another head.

“Da- Sire, what’s this all about? Really. Because if its alright with you, I’d really like to take a bath or something because, don’t know if you’ve smelled me, but I reek.” She pretended not to see her sire’s nose wrinkled as he took a surreptitious sniff. It really was a pungent scent.

“I supposed I should get to the heart of the matter and let you go about your…business,” He said, none too subtly bringing up a sleeve to cover his nose.  
“I bring up the topic of St. Gildrin’s Academy for a rather complex reason. The Concord has maintained an embassy in several Union member states, including Lyonesse, for the past several decades. It has shown to be an invaluable sort of proving grounds for young elves aspiring to higher office, whilst simultaneously maintaining our good relationship with the human nations in the near east. In fact, the son of Queen Yanarisil has made great connections during his time at our embassy in Breakstrand and impressed his Queen Mother’s vassals so much that he has secured his claim to her seat once she resigns. That is all to say that they are a great asset to the Concord and much needed in these times of unreset in the east. In relation to the embassy in Avalon, St. Gildrin’s College has proven an equally important tool in promoting goodwill between elves and humans. Thus, the matter at hand.”

Only an elf, Alvanue thought wryly to herself, could say the words ‘get to the heart of the matter’ and then follow them with a paragraph of meaningless exposition before getting to the actual point. Well, maybe just the older elves. She did not think Edhalan could understand half the things that came out of her sire’s mouth at his most concise. Elf, human or cold-blooded ophidian, it did not matter, old folks were old folks wherever one went.

“At the last summit,” he continued, “it was made known that several positions will soon be available at the embassy in Avalon, coinciding with the commencement of courses at St. Gildrin’s in a month and a half.”

“Okay, what’s that got to do with me?” she asked. She loved her sire, but sometimes he truly was the most long-winded elf she had ever had the misfortune of meeting.

“I know you desire greatly to travel. That is to say, are you inclined to go to Avalon?” he asked.

A moment passed between them before Alvanue rocketed up and off the table.

“Wait, what?!”

“I am asking, child, if you would like to attend St. Gildrin’s whilst serving your house and your people in an ambassadorial fashion.”

This was most certainly a shock. In her thirty odd years in Creation, she had tried everything to convince her sire, and dams, to let her travel. What was the use in being reincarnated into a fantasy world if you did not get to experience it? They had refused her outright upon each request, sending her on largely ceremonial missions to satisfy her wanderlust. She would have accepted simply taking a trip to the southern isles to see the realms of the wood elves and high elves, but this was more than she had dared to hope for. It was impossible to focus on why her sire was offering something so anathema to his previous position when she was so happy.

Before she could stop herself, Alvanue vaulted forward and into Githanduin’s lap, wrapping him in an almost painful tight hug. “Yes! Yes yes yes yes! I’ll go, I accept!”

Slightly stilted in his actions, the old elf brought up his hand to pat his progeny’s shoulder. “Good,” he said, a sad smile splitting his lips, “then I shall begin preparations. And child?”

“Hmm?” she mumbled into his shoulder.

“Please take a bath. Immediately.”


	2. Rumor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally uploaded an unedited version of chapter two ToT so hear is the actual, edited version.

“Forked tongue lash’d orkish steel  
and Arder’s last stand at lon’ly Veil  
was seen by manne and aelf and beast  
til darkness fell from yond’r East.”

-‘Aulde Ricke Arder’ or ‘Old King Arthur’ attributed to Guy de Paimpont, circa 24,600 AC.

A month to prepare for her departure seemed like a long time to Alvanue, but it passed with surprising speed.

When informed of Githanduin’s offer to Alvanue, her two dams threw an absolute fit. They were firmly against the idea and she thought she could understand why. From their perspective it was as if they were sending their toddler off to boarding school in a foreign country all by herself. Edhalan was going with her but that was hardly reassuring to the two distraught elves. While she could understand their position, she had no plans on remaining cooped up in Endrillond for a second longer than necessary.

It was a wonderful place to grow up, but she had explored it many times in the years since her birth. She had visited the great elven families in their ethereal halls, seen the Bjarmalanders in their whalebone houses, climbed the great black peaks of the Amrothuilye, sailed the icy seas beyond the Edge of Night and visited the cloistered elders at Moonwatch where the stars seemed close enough to touch. There was hardly a place in all the lands her family controlled that she had not visited at least once. Endrillond was a magical land but any place grows to be boring if you spend too long there. The itch to go out and explore the wider world had only grown since she had accepted her position at St. Gildrin’s. 

If she was given a second chance at life, why not live it to its fullest?

***

The first week after the news broke, every meal was a tense affair, full of shifting gazes and brooding silences. Her dams eased the constant barrage of reprimands after that but took any chance they could to plead with her to change her mind. The fights that ensued were followed by several days of peace before the cycle started all over again.

The only part of the preparations her dams involved themselves in was the commissioning of a new wardrobe. Her sire bemoaned the cost but Sildathlene in particular was insist upon it. Alvanue was happy enough to take her old clothing with her to St. Gildrin’s but her elegant dam refused to hear of it and Alvanue knew how to pick her battles.

The poor tailor and his apprentice worked themselves to the bone to produce the clothing in time for her departure. It was all beautifully made but very traditionally Endrillondian garb. Dresses in grey, white and purple silk, cut high to suit warmer climes and several capes trimmed in velvet instead of the traditional fur. Her family crest, the sharp, stylized silhouette of the Evening Star, was picked out in silver thread on most of the pieces. Sildathlene donated several silver and chalcedony necklaces and Nalendril his favorite pearl broach.

There was, of course, the question of what to do with the small troll pup that Alvanue had brought home. No troll pack, even those friendly to the elves, would take in a strange pup in the dead of winter. Her family was unwilling to take care of the creature themselves and her sire was certain it would be a catastrophe if she were to bring the creature with her, and so they argued over what must be done. As with most things, Alvanue eventually persuaded her sire to see things her way. The pup, which she had begun calling Snowflake, would go with her to Avalon.

More practically, her sire insisted that she brush up on her Common Tongue as well and hired a tutor to educate her on the basics of Lyonessite history. Knowing their child well, all three of her parents were more than a little concerned that she had the potential to cause a diplomatic disaster, especially if she went off to a country whose etiquette was completely unknown to her. She knew Common well enough to speak with the Bjarmalanders and the Northmen that came to trade in their long ships, but she knew little of the Union that Lyonesse belonged to, let alone the kingdom itself.

Elder Uruigith was tasked with rectifying this oversight, to Alvanue’s displeasure. The crotchety old monster was the only elf she had ever seen that appeared noticeably old. Faint crow’s feet and frown lines were the only physical marks of his 6 millenia in Creation, but among an eternally youthful people such as the elves, Uruigith looked positively ancient.

He was as ill-tempered as he was old, and he inflicted his bad moods on anyone unfortunate enough to spend more than a few seconds in his company. For the hours between breaking her fast and the noonday meal, that privilege was Alvanue’s.

The course of his tutelage lasted three weeks, but it might as well have been a lifetime as far as Alvanue was concerned. He drilled her on useless old histories of kingdoms that were younger than some of his wrinkles. He tested her memory on the names of noble families, their heirs, the seemingly nonexistent differences in culture and society between Lyonesse and her sister kingdoms and more besides. When she answered incorrectly, he wacked her across the back of her head none too gently with his Silverwood staff. When she answered correctly, he would scowl and say something disparraging before moving on to a new topic.

Needless to say, she tried her best to pay attention during his lessons and some of them actually stuck. She learned that Lyonesse was one of four allied kingdoms in what was known as the United Kingdoms of Albion, the human countries west of the Ash Mountains and east of the White Ocean. Long ago, they had all been one land ruled over by the ancient King Arthur Pendragon. The name tickled an old memory, but Alvanue could not put her finger on where she had heard the name before.

According to Uruigith, Arthur’s many children fought each other bitterly for land and titles after their father’s death, splintering the Old Kingdom of Albion into a hundred petty chiefdoms and warring clans. The constant state of war between the Pendragon heirs and their descendants lasted for nearly a thousand years. The current king of Lyonesse, Loholt, claimed direct descent from the Pendragon dynasty through Arthur’s son of the same name.

This was hardly impressive as so too did most rulers in the west. There was even an Orc Warlord in the Ashen Plains who was said to have a bit of the Old King’s blood, though Uruigith said it was doubtful. Over time, the splinter factions of Old Albion were consolidated into the powerful kingdoms of Cogayne and Tir Derwydd in the north, Westernesse in the west and Lyonesse in the east, with Reynes and Ys to the south. The U.K.A., known to many as the Union, was created by Cogayne, Westerness and Lyonesse nearly three centuries before the current date. The three kingdoms came together in an attempt to better defend against the Orcish raiding parties that were coming from east over the mountains to plunder war torn Albion. After several crusades to reclaim the human lands invaded by the orcs in the shadow of the Ash Mountains, the Union was proven militarily as well as economically successful. Tir Derwydd joined the Union half a century after their success the orcs back through the mountain pass Hoga’s Folley in order to access its safe overland trade routes to the east.

Uruigith also tutored her on her use of mana. Her lessons on mana had previously been taught by both Sildathlene and Nalendril, but her sire wanted her to receive a more formal education on the matter. In this, the ancient elf was uncharacteristically patient. There were no rude words or blows from his staff, just simple encouragement when she succeeded and polite correction when she failed. He took painstaking care to walk her through the many forms and incantations a young elf needed to know in order to build up their mana reserves.

From him, she learned proper mana consumption as well as the beginnings of how to circulate mana through her body. With those building blocks, he told her, she could one day use mana circulation to heal wounds and amplify her abilities. That was, however, at the expense of years and years of practice. He gave her one of his personal books on the technique needed, an impossibly old text written by her foremother Yisendril herself. He made her swear that she would study it alongside her regular classes a St. Gildrin’s.

Though it was difficult, she worked furiously through his lessons, enduring his abuses, all with the knowledge that before the month was through, she would be free. Off on an adventure across the ocean to lands unknown in a world that was still such a wonderful mystery.

After her lessons, when she was alone but for Snowflake, she wondered what St. Gildrin’s would be like. What would the people there be like, what about the classes? Her only experience with institutions of higher education had been an underfunded community college during the 90s. There was little chance it could be worse than that. She hoped. Her sire had explained to her that it was one of the largest institutions of learning on the continent that catered to many students, from as far away as Shangdu to as near as the Elven Realms. Most of its student body trained to be knights or other military positions while a smaller number learned the mystical arts. Alvanue was to be counted among that number.

There were only two conditions to her long-term attendance of St. Gildrin’s College; firstly, she must live at the Embassy during her time at at the school, and secondly, she must enroll in the Mage Program. She would be excused from most duties associated with her position at the Embassy as she was mostly an honorary diplomat and she could choose her focus within the program, but those two points were non-negotiable. They were easy concessions to make for two important reasons: a room at the Embassy was bound to be leagues better than campus housing and she had already been planning to pursue magical learning.

The final days before her departure were spent focusing on refining her mana consumption with Uruigith, bickering with her dams and going over supply lists with Githanduin. Any free time she had was spent riding out along the beach with Edhalan or playing with the quickly growing Snowflake. She rode out to some of the places she liked best, just to visit them one last time. A tidal cave she had found with Sildathlene which she had dubbed ‘the Blowhole’, the ruins of an old watch tower half devoured by an advancing glacier, a sheltered dale to the west where frost roses grew even during the long night of winter. If she completed a program at St. Gildrin’s, she would not be back here for a total of four years, more if she impressed a teacher enough to take her on as their personal pupil.

On her last night home, her dam Nalendril came to her chambers.

“May I come in?” he asked, muffled voice coming from behind the door.

“Sure.” she said, readying herself for another lecture.

Her dam entered the room, looking for all the world like a moth made man. Or elf in this case. Of all her parents, she most resembled Nalendril; pale, delicate features, long silver-white hair, and ears as long and sharp as daggers. They could be twins but for the difference in their eyes and height. Alvanue had her sire’s dark violet eyes and her other dam Sildathlene’s well-formed figure, whereas Nalendril was silver eyed, tall and bird boned.

“I’m not disturbing you, am I child?” he asked hesitantly. Alvanue looked down at the book in her lap and shook her head. She had been reviewing one of the books on Uruigith’s ‘recommended’ reading list, a treatise on modern courtly manners in Albion, though it was less a recommendation than it was a requirement. Even though his final lesson had been days before, he had given her several more tomes for her further reading.

“Nope. Was just about to call it quits, actually. What’s up?”

Nalendril came to sit at the foot of her bed before speaking. “I wished to talk to you once more before you left and no-”, he raised his hand to forestall any comment from her, “I will not try to dissuade you from the path you’ve chosen. Your mind seems set on this course and I’d not have us part on bad terms tomorrow.”

Alvanue was pleased though skeptical at hearing this. The last time she and Nalendril had been alone together was the time the elf had ever yelled at her in living memory. After weeks of trying to cajole and guilt her into staying, they had gotten into a very high spirited discussion. She had left the normally stoic elf in tears upon her refusal to reconsider staying in Endrillond.

“And if you will not stay here, in the safety of your ancestors’ lands, then I must ensure that you can protect yourself,” He continued.

Her dam reached one hand into a fold in his robes and withdrew a slim box. He handed it to her, and she turned it over to inspect it. It was made of smooth wood, black and shiny with lacquer and little metal hinges along its sides. On its lid was stamped her family crest in white paint. She ran a finger over it before giving her dam a questioning look.

“Open it,” he nudged.

She did as she was told and, upon seeing what was contained within, did her absolute best not to drop it. Nested inside was one of the few true wands she had ever seen. Silverwood was better than the common wood she had seen human mages craft their wands from, but like all lesser wands they were quick to burn out and given to misfiring in untrained hands. Such was the capricious nature of wood and the trees it came from. This wand, however, was 12 inches of pure, unadorned mithril. Her mage sight drank in the spiderweb of enchantments and spells worked into the metal, gossamer thin but unbreakable to any but a master mage.

Reverently, with shaking hands, she pulled it free of the box and tested its weight. Wider at the base and tapered towards the tip with a white gemstone set in its handle, it was perfectly balanced. Its reflected opalescent light and scattered faint rainbows around the room. It was a piece of art as much as it was a deadly magical weapon.

She turned wide eyes on a pleased looking Nalendril.

“White mithril shell with a star metal core. The ley stone is moonstone, my preferred mineral for greater workings. I commissioned it after Sildathlene and I began to prepare for your birth. It was meant to be a gift for when you passed your first century, but I think it best you have it now,” he explained to his still gob smacked child.

“It’s…I- don’t really know what to say,” she said.

“Then say nothing. I only hope that it serves you well.”

She could feel the mana running through the wand, enough to cast a hundred, perhaps two hundred spells of a lesser magnitude before it would need to be recharged. Even then, if she understood the enchantments on it, it would pull ambient mana from the air around it and refill over time. It would never burn out, never fail her like the cheap wands she made on her own or the silver staves favored by her sire’s guard. To elves, burnout was a matter of life and death. For human mages, made of flesh and blood as they were, manaburn for them at the least meant fatigue and at the worst meant minor injuries. For Elves, it was not so.

Unlike the mortal races, Elves were made entirely of mana, their souls sheathed in spell flesh forged in the strange wombs of the Silverwood tree. For them, manaburn could very well mean death. As elves grew older, the small amount of mana inherited from their parents took on a life of its own and grew just like a living thing. The oldest of the elves had monstrously high mana reserves, near gods with the power they accumulated over their long lives. As a young elf, however, Alvanue’s mana reserves were a fraction of her elders. Should she find herself in a situation where she used too much of her own mana, the consequences could be dire. Having a wand such as this, one with enough of its own power to take on an unarmed elder, was a potential lifesaver. For this benefit alone, it was priceless.

“You must know that Sildathlene and I are in no way trying to hold you back, we simply worry for your safety,” Nalendril said, interrupting her worshipful inspection of the wand, and reached out for her free hand. “Please believe me when I say that we love you very much, and even if we do not agree with what you and your sire are doing, we wish you only happiness.”

Unbidden, tears came to Alvanue’s eyes. Even when they had been alive, her original family had never been all that affectionate with her. It was hard, even after so many years, to have it offered so freely without being caught off guard.

“I do, mom. I love you guys too,” she said, and meant it deeply.

Nalendril rolled his eyes, a smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “You always use that silly human phrase. But nevermind, just do not call Sildathlene that, she’d be very cross.”

A chuckle bubbled up in Alvanue’s chest as she imagined the look only Sildathlene’s face when she had called her mom for the first time. The sight and sound of it only set Nalendril to laughing as well and soon they were both giggling, heads leaned close together. A parent and their child, enjoying a happy moment in each other’s company.

They shared a quiet moment as their laughter died down. Alvanue set the wand back in its box and wiped a sleeve over her eyes. Unlike with her sire or even her other dam, she felt completely at ease with Nalendril. He was calm and kind and it only occurred to her in that instant how much she would miss him once she was gone.

The levity was gone but a sense of peace settled over them. She took the opportunity to shuffle over to her dam and lay her head in his lap. He used his free hand, the fingers of his other hand still entwined with hers, to card through her hair. The small knots she had allowed to accumulate were untangled without any of the comments Sildathlenewould have had for her appearance or Githanduin’s remonstrations to look more ladylike in front of the court. From its nest in the corner of the room, Snowflake snorted in its sleep and shifted into a more comfortable position. As her dam’s quick fingers began to twine her locks into thick braids, Alvanue felt tears threaten once more and then spill over. Hot droplets slid down her face to darken her dam’s robes.

“You guys know I’m not doing this to get away from you right? It’s just- I can’t breath here anymore, I feel like if I don’t go now I’ll never get out and I’ll just grow old and die here,” she said.

Nalendril’s hands paused in their work. “I know, child. I know.”

“Elders, I feel like an idiot for being sad. This is what I wanted, so why am I crying!” she managed to say, swallowing around the lump in her throat.

“It’s normal to feel the way that you do. Many feel the poorly after receiving that which they have longed for. How do you think I felt when you were born?” her dam asked.

Alvanue wiggled onto her back to better look up at Nalendril, eyes red and nose runny. “You were sad when I was born?”

The silver eyed elf let out a laugh like the pealing of a bell. “No, sweetling, I was incredibly happy, but also equally terrified. Terrified of making a mistake, of seeing you come to harm, of a thousand different things. Being a parent is no easy thing.”

He looked to see the consternation still plain on her face and sighed. “What I am trying to say is that change is never easy, even- no, especially when it is welcomed. It can be scary but that does not make it bad. If you feel fear or sadness right now, it means nothing other than that you are a young elf about to leave home for the first time in your life. You are justifiably apprehensive. Let yourself feel those things, Alvanue, let yourself cry. It will be alright,” he said and so she did.

***

When Alvanue awoke the next morning, Nalendril’s lap had been replaced with a pillow, her dam’s cloak draped over her. The unlight of a winter’s day was bright enough for her elven eyes to pick out the procession of people coming through the gates from her window. Stars shone down on Silthonduen, resplendent in the dark with magelights and enchanted ice.

Lethargically, she roused herself from bed and put on one of her new dresses, plain gray silk with silver stars, and one of Sildathlene’s necklaces. She could change into something more appropriate for travel once the boat had taken off. She turned to her mirror before she left for the banquet hall. It showed a sad reflection. Crescent moons pressed into the skin under each of her eyes, dark against her pale skin, and her cheeks were still blotchy from crying. There was not much she could do about that, so she left Snowflake to a few extra hours of sleep and went to join her family for breakfast.

The meal was a mournful affair. Alvanue picked at her food halfheartedly and found it impossible to hold a conversation with the lords and ladies that had come to see her off. While her parents were more polite and held themselves with their usual dignity, their expressions were wooden and their eyes dull. It was little comfort to her that they felt as poorly as she.

For all that she had wanted this, now that she was fully processing what it meant to leave, she almost regretted it. Yes, it was a bit boring and yes, there was so much more to see out in the wider world, but here she had a family that loved her, friends, even a throne if she could prove herself worthy of it. She had everything she had lacked in her previous life and only now, right before her imminent departure, was she realizing what she was walking away from.

As if hearing her thoughts, Nalendril caught her eye across the table and gave her an encouraging nod. The sadness in her heart did not disappear, but it did lessen. Even if her dam did not understand her desire to leave, he supported her. Her sire was doing the same; Githanduin had offered her this opportunity after all, a chance to see the world for herself even though he neither understood nor approved of her desire to do so. Sildathlene encouraged her in her own ways, though Alvanue was sure her haughty dam was more upset that she was traveling to human lands than that she was traveling at all. She was a kind enough elf but she tended to look down on the mortal races and was not all too keen of her only child mingling with what she considered to be her lessers.

She let that understanding pass through her and felt better for it. Melancholy and, absurdly, nostalgia still sat heavy in her chest, but they were also tempered with the excitement she had first felt when imagining her life at St. Gildrin’s. It was a strange thing indeed to be homesick for a home she had not yet left.

Alvanue smiled at her dam and ate a determined bite of her food.

After the meal was finished, her family as well as most of the elves of Silthonduen led her down to the shore. She carried Snowflake in her arms. The troll had yowled and shrieked when her sire ordered her to put it in a cage. Edhalan and his dam, the Lord of Endrillond’s personal guard, followed closely behind her family.

A slender, white prowed ship waited for her at the docks. Edhalan clasped arms with his dam and took Snowflake from Alvanue. Necessary supplies in addition to her luggage were loaded onto the boat more quickly than she would have liked and then all too suddenly, it was time for her to go.

Sildathlene took her by her shoulders. “You are fool for this, child,” she said, but pulled her into a tight embrace, sniffling. Before releasing her, the older elf tucked a final gift into one of Alvanue’s silvery braids, a hairpin with the runic name of the Fifth Elder etched into it. “For good luck.”

Githanduin had cold, formal words of lordly advice for her but he gave her a warm smile and pulled her against his chest for a hug.

Nalendril, perhaps sensing that saying too much would set her to openly weeping, took her hands in his. “I wish you only happiness. Come home when you are ready,” he said and kissed her on the forehead.

It would be a point of pride, later, that she managed to say her goodbyes and step onto the boat with completely dry eyes. The tears would come later, she knew, when she was alone in her cabin.

With the pale faces of her parents and her people watching, bright as the stars in the sky, the boat shoved off into the deep, black waters of the Sea of Stars. Alvanue stayed above deck for a long time, watching first her parents and then Silthonduen fade from sight, until all that was visible were the aurora-crowned Amrothuilye in the distance and the endless black expanse of the midday sky.

***

While Alvanue sailed off toward new adventures on foreign shores, the procession that had seen her off dispersed. Back in the icy halls and frozen gardens of Silthonduen, three parents mourned the absence of their child. An infant, in their eyes, not even a hundred years of age with little power of her own. They had remained on the beach, black sand blowing in the wind, and watched until the boat had vanished onto the horizon before they made their way back to an emptier, quieter keep.

“You are a disgrace and a failure of a sire to let her leave home on her own, and to the savage mortal lands no less,” Sildathlene seethed. Her normally lovely features were twisted into a mask of rage and sorrow that gave even Githanduin pause. Rarely had she ever seemed so fierce.

Nalendril put an arm around the angry elf in an attempt to sooth her. “Come now, it does nothing but wound those you love by speaking so harshly. And remember, she has young Edhalan to keep her safe-”

Sildathlene scoffed and threw Nalendril’s arm off her.

“What, I’m now to take comfort in the thought of babes protecting babes? He’s hardly more grown than Alvanue!” she interrupted. She continued pacing the length of Githanduin’s study while the other two elves watched on.

Nalendril shot a glance at Githanduin, meeting his husband’s eye before inclining his head in their wife’s direction. The three of them had been married a very long time, longer indeed than many mortal nations had existed, and so he understood Nalendril’s meaning well. Say something, Nalendril pled without words, explain yourself so that she might understand.

He had already explained himself in private the day Sildathlene and Nalendril had learned of their child’s decision to leave, and his hand in allowing it. It was not a topic Githanduin liked to speak on, for though it was not that which Sildathlene accused him of, it was a failure all the same. All the rulers of the Concord of Elven Realms had failed, both their ancestors and their people, and the realization was far from pleasant.

“My love, I have already told you my reasons for letting Alvanue attend St. Gildrin’s. Why must we continue to fight about this?” he asked.

Sildathlene stopped her pacing to twist on her heel and marched towards him, finger poking at him accusatorily.

“And what reasons might those be, hm? You’ve taken the Concord’s fear mongering for fact and sent Alvanue half a world away on mere hearsay,” she spat. Her eyes blazed like two blue flames in her head and her white hair blew as if in a gentle breeze as her magic began to react to her mood. The magelight that lit the room flickered and shadows crept up the walls.

Finally, a hot flicker of his own anger ignited in Githanduin’s chest. He was normally a calm and self-possessed elf, but he viewed his wife’s rage as unreasonable and felt color rise in his cheeks. “Hearsay? You think I have not done everything I could to disprove the rumors? Sildathlene, I have seen the truth of what is happening with my own two eyes. I have been to the pits under the Valley of the Elders in Risillond and the Mountains of Fire in Udroniathe. The shackles grow weaker by the day. Even the Archivist has no knowledge of how to keep them from breaking free. Should that happen, it is safer by far for Alvanue in Lyonesse than it would be here. Are you being intentionally blind or has your unavas habit rotted your brain?”

“The Archivist,” Sildathlene sneered, a vein popping in her forehead, “she was yet ancient when the humans and every other squirming thing were still using pointy sticks to hunt naked in the woods. That hag’s mad ramblings have turned all the little lords and ladies of the Concord to whimpering cowards and now this? You tell me that you believe those idiotic prophecies? I name you craven as well as a failure.”

“Enough!” said Nalendril, his voice raised. The sound of it was enough of a shock to give pause to both Sildathlene and Githanduin. Their husband was not known to shout even when his emotions were high. The shadows that had spread around the room lessened and the magelight above flickered back to life as Sildathlene backed down. “That is enough from the two of you. Sildathlene, your words are sharp, and you will regret them when your temper has cooled. Githanduin, you are intentionally baiting her. Desist. If neither of you can discuss things civilly, I will treat you like the children you insist on being.”

Sildathlene was still fuming but seemed properly chastened and moved away from her two husbands to star out the window at the expanse of the sea. She crossed her arms and stuck her nose in the air, but she did not lash out with her barbed tongue again. Githanduin, too, seemed properly embarrassed by his outburst and awkwardly shifted from foot to foot, very much like the child Nalendril accused him of being.

“Good,” said Nalendril, “now, Sildathlene, even if you do not believe in the rumors spreading throughout the realms, can you at least agree that our husband thought he was acting in the best interests of our child?”

“Nalendril, you cannot seriously take his side in this-” she began to say.

“Ah ah ah!” he interrupted smoothly with a waggling finger, “I do not at all condone his actions, dearest. It was extremely inappropriate of him to offer Alvanue a position at the Embassy without consulting us beforehand.”

His cold silver eyes flashed to the elf in question when he began to protest. Githanduin, wisely, chose to shut his mouth before he found himself in further trouble.

“I asked you a question, dearest, please do me the curtesy of answering,” said Nalendril

Sildathlene’s frown deepened but she relelnted. “Fine! I suppose I can see how he thought he was protecting her, but-”

“Thank you, love, that is all,” the silver haired elf cut off what was sure to be another tirade. “Now, Githanduin, can you understand the gravity of the mistake you made in assuming that you could send our child away from home without consulting the two elves that slaved over her creation? The two elves in all the world who poured their hearts and souls and mana into her very being? Can you understand Sildathlene’s ire and mine?”

Githanduin gulped. Unlike their wife, the silver eyed elf before him was slow to anger, but once he was, his wrath was like a force of nature. It was what initially had drawn he and Sildathlene to Nalendril when they were all much younger but he also did not know how to deal with him when he was like that. Even being Lord of Silthonduen and High Lord of Endrillond in his own right, Githanduin suddenly felt very small and powerless under his husband’s stern gaze. From over Nalendril’s shoulder he could see Sildathlene smirking smugly at his predicament.

“I- yes, of course I understand why you might feel upset about that, however, I-” He began to say but faltered as the he felt the pressure in the room change. It was the feeling one might get when sensing an approaching thunderstorm, a subtle thrum almost too quiet to hear and the pricking of the hairs on the back of one’s neck. Cold sweat beading on the Lord of Silthonduen’s forehead froze as the temperature grew even more freezing.

“Upset? No, husband, you mistake me.” Nalendril came closer to him. “I am not upset. I am furious.”

Githanduin took an unconscious half-step back before catching the action and forcing himself to stand tall. Sildathlene looked positively delighted by the scene unfolding before her as she watched from the window. Nalendril stopped a hand’s breadth from Githanduin, his face tilted up to look at him. It felt like an eternity, the unfamiliar thing that had moments ago been his sweet husband staring at him with steely eyes, the scent of ozone heavy in the frigid air between them. The aura being pushed out by Nalendril’s magic was a ferocious thing. Githanduin felt as if he was sitting in judgement before some terrible god of storms and darkness and shivered despite himself.

“But, what’s done is done,” said Nalendril, clapping his hands together and turning away so that his sweet smelling hair flicked Githanduin in the face, “Now all we can do is pray to the Elders for her safety and happiness.”

Just like that, the elf was back to normal, the cold, terrible creature he had shifted into was gone. The room was no longer so oppressively cold, and it was full of light once more. Githanduin breathed a sigh of relief.

“Indeed,” He said. He tried and failed to look unaffected by what had unfolded mere moments ago.

“I still think you foolish, husband, for your hand in this but it does…assuage some of my anger to see that our sweet Nalendril can still put the fear of the Elders in you. When it’s needed.”

Githanduin shot a glare at his wife but cleared his throat to speak. “I never meant for my actions to cause you distress and for that, I apologize. Being that as it may, I still stand by it. Alvanue is safest as far away from these lands as possible. At least we may keep an eye on her while she stays at the Embassy.”

“Let’s not repeat ourselves, my loves, we were doing so well,” Nalendril said, bringing a hand up to massage his temples.

“As you please,” Sildathlene said airily and moved to leave.

“Sildathlene, a moment.” Githanduin held up a hand to stop her.

She cocked an eyebrow at him, her lovely face still sour with poor mood. “Yes?”

“I know you both believe what I have told you to be false. I pray that you are right, and I am wrong, though I have seen the truth of it. At night, as I lay in bed, I can feel the truth of it like a stone in the pit of my stomach and I fear for our family, Sildathlene, and I fear for Endrillond and all the people of the Concord,” He said. “The dragons are awakening, and when they do, the world will burn.”


	3. Duel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! So this is the edited version. Probably full of errors still, but oh well, it's better than it was before.

"The greatest battle of a man's life is the one waged against his own desires."

-'Ways of the Warrior' by Sir Gwylhern the Stern, who famously drowned in a barrel of ale, circa 26,843 AC.

The boat trip was a lot less interesting than Alvanue thought it would be. 

She grew bored of moping around her cabin feeling sad after the second day and started poking around the ship. Snowflake was her little shadow even though the poor creature had definitely not taken to life at sea. The troll’s little limbs wobbled and shook with fear whenever the ship lurched with the sea and, though a predator by nature, shied away from the seagulls that roosted up on the masts. Edhalan was also having trouble acclimating to the sea: he could not eat anything without it eventually coming back up, violently, over the side of the boat. 

The captain, a friendly Sea Elf named Silfene with pale blue skin and pearlescent eyes, said that it would get better in a day or two. That turned out to be a lie, as Edhalan was violently ill for the entirety of the trip.

The crew was friendly, mostly Sea Elves out of Uethalduen expect for one sour-faced Risillondi. They let Alvanue pester them and answered all her questions, of which there were many. The only times she had ever sailed were under the watchful eye of her sire: a formal visit to the Lord and Lady of furthest Norendelith in the Night Sea and a supervised trip to the under-monastery at Quelanthirid, so she wanted to know everything. She asked how the ship worked, and what charms and spells were used by the Sea Elves to manipulate the weather. 

They were reluctant to reveal much about their sea magic, but happy to teach her other things, like how to tie different knots and how to predict storms. She drank up all the information they had to share with relish.

When Edhalan was suffering from a bout of seasickness or the crew was too busy to entertain her, she focused on bonding with her wand. She had only gone through the process with wooden wands before, which took time themselves, but it was a completely different process with one made from mithril. The metal felt more alive than Silverwood ever had, probing her magic as she laid the appropriate charms on it.

The process was time consuming and when she got impatient and tried to rush a certain spell, she felt as if it resented her for it. Whatever spell she was working on would collapse and she would have to start all over again. Struggling with frustration, she kept having to step away from it, only getting the binding done in fits and starts.

She tried practicing with it to limited success. She could cast the most basic of spells, like lifting things or shooting off minor defensive curses, but anything greater and the wand locked up. It was as if the mana in the wand was sluggish and reluctant to obey her commands. Without a proper binding, she knew it would never reach its full potential.

***

The waters were mild as milk until they passed from the Sea of Stars into the more turbulent White Ocean. Storms buffeted them daily, great waves as tall as the highest tower in Silthonduen swelling and crashing around the slender ship. Under Silfene’s deft hand, the ship always managed to escape unscathed. Whatever magic the elf used, it was strong. Alvanue was itching to get a peak at the captain’s driftwood staff but thought it would be rude to ask. 

The fierce storm winds that harassed them also filled the sails, rocketing the ship across the White Ocean in just a handful of days. Edhalan was near tears when they caught sight of dry land, the gray cliffs of some mist shrouded island just off the coast of Westernesse. It was a few more days until they passed through the Bay of Seals into the shallow waters of the Sweet Sea and, unfortunately for Snowflake, that meant an increase of seagulls. By the time they docked in Avalon a day later, the troll refused to step foot on deck, terrified of the winged scavengers. 

The city was massive. It rose steeply from the water’s edge, rows of houses and shops stacked on top of one another until they disappeared into the fog and clouds that floated around the city’s peak. The sheer size of it was a little overwhelming compared to the general calm and stillness of her homeland. Ships flying the colors of half a dozen nations crowded the port. The docks were teeming with representatives from every corner of Creation: humans, orcs, dwarves, even the rare elf and a few ophidians. She did not think she had ever seen so many people gathered in one place before. 

A delegate from the embassy, a twitchy Wood Elf with a nervous smile, met them at the docks with a carriage. Captain Silfene and her crew transferred her luggage onto it from the ship and wished them both good fortune before going off on their own business.

The Concordian Embassy was situated high on Castle Hill, at the very heart of the city. The horses struggled with the weight of the carriage as they took switchback roads up the steep sides of the hill and Alvanue thought back on the elegance and power of her snow deer. Horses were poor substitutes for the Moon Elves’ chosen mounts and beasts of burden, but snow deer only thrived in the bitter cold. They would wither in the southern heat.

Ambassador Olome was away at a conference in Cogayne, as the Wood Elf explained, so it fell to him to show them to their rooms once their reached the embassy. The embassy itself was beautiful in a very elven way, all tall, airy rooms lit with crystals and magelights. Tree motifs were worked into anything that could feasibly be carved. Their rooms were on the second floor across the corridor from one another. Edhalan’s faced the street below while Alvanue’s faced the atrium at the heart of the embassy containing a single Silverwood tree. She was surprised that a Silverwood could thrive so far from the Concord until she noticed the greater array laid into the pool of water at its roots. 

Attendants began to unpack their things and Alvanue started to feel like she was underfoot, so she looked for something else to do. Snowflake had crawled up onto her bed and fallen asleep when they were first shown to their rooms, so she let the troll rest. 

She stepped across the hall to peak into Edhalan’s room.

“Hey, you wanna go check out the city?”

“Not really, but I’m not going to let you go alone,” he sighed and got up from his chair at the window.

Castle Hill was a rich district in Avalon, home to expensive shops and restaurants, mixed in with the private residences of merchant princes, knights and court mages. It certainly looked nicer than the neighborhoods she had seen on the way up from the docks. 

Alvanue was still a little taken aback by the sheer number of humans walking around. Elves reproduced at a much slower rate than the mortal races, and as such their cities tended to be no bigger than a small town by human standards. Most were hardly more than a noble family, their courtiers, and their servants. Castle Hill was only one of many districts in Avalon, and yet it was a good three times larger than Silthonduen, itself the capitol of Endrillond. 

The architecture was not what she had suspected of a human city in a fantasy world. It looked more like some European tourist trap that rich people would go to on vacation on Earth rather than the Dark Ages rip-off she had pictured in her head. It was all honey colored stone and chalkboard signs outside of pricey looking cafes. The streets did not even smell like sewage, which upon further reflection was probably a good thing. 

Her long ears twitched as something cut through the general street noise to catch her attention. It sounded like someone was calling out her name. A moment later, her sharp hearing was able to cut through the noise on the street.

“My lady! My lady! Excuse me, Lady Alvanue? Excuse me!” 

Alvanue and Edhalan turned to spy a red-faced human running up the hill after them. They looked at each other questioningly before she shrugged. Edhalan said nothing as they turned to wait for the wheezing man to catch up with them. 

He was rather small, a good head shorter than Alvanue herself, with an awful gray bowl cut, thick mustache and what looked to Alvanue like the crest of St. Gildrin’s College pinned to his simple black robes: a dove holding a wand in one foot and a sword in the other. She remembered it from some of the correspondence left out on her sire’s desk.

Huffing and puffing, with sweat dripping down his tomato red face, the man came to a halt in front of them. The poor man tried to speak but ended up doubled over, his hands on his knees as he took in great, gulping breaths.

“My-” he coughed, “my apologizes, Lady Alvanue. Just a moment.”

“Do you need to sit down or something? You don’t look so hot, man,” she said. He looked about ready to keel over.

“On the contrary, I am quite warm, my lady. And no, thank you kindly, I just need to a moment,” he said, waving her off.

After a minute of gasping for air, it seemed than man would live. With a fortifying breath, he pulled himself up to the fullness of his meagre height and addressed the two Moon Elves.

“Right,” he said, “Again, my apologies sir and lady, I reached the docks too late to properly welcome you. My name is Silban Kelibrig, Dean of Magical Studies and Professor of Divination at St. Gildrin’s College. It is an honor to make your acquaintance.” 

He bowed deeply and almost tipped forward into the street. Edhalan caught him by the shoulders and tilted him back as the man’s arms pinwheeled in the air to keep balance. Once he was upright again, he ran his hands down the front of his robes as if the straighten them.

His already red cheeks flushed darker, this time with embarrassment rather than oxygen deprivation.

“Erm, thank you, Sir Elf, much appreciated,” he said, mustache wiggling.

Edhalan waved away the man’s thanks. “His Majesty made no mention of the college sending anyone to collect us at the docks. Why have you come?”

Alvanue sighed internally at the other elf’s tone. He was always a bit cold and standoffish whenever he talked with humans. Edhalan thought it made him sound authoritative and important, but in Alvanue’s opinion all it really did was make him sound like a dick.

“Did he not?” the old man blinked large eyes at them. “But I’m sure that I- well never mind, very likely a misunderstanding, on my part of course! However, there are several matters to attend to before classes start. If you would please follow me, Lady Alvanue, there’s a carriage waiting at the embassy to take us up to the college.”

Reluctantly, Alvanue followed Professor Kilibrig back to the embassy building. Exploring would have to wait until later. Edhalan, having no interest in the proceedings and assured of her safety with Kelibrig at the college, returned to his room to rest. He had not had a proper night’s sleep since they left Endrillond, what with all the puking, so she could not blame him.

The carriage awaiting them was of a rougher sort than the one that had picked her up at the docks, old wood and peeling paint, but it rode much more smoothly. It was a short trip just a bit further up the hill from the embassy to the college campus. The college itself was perched on a ledge just below the royal palace, tucked up against the palace’s fortifications at the highest point of the city. Heavy stone walls covered in ivy closed it off from Avalon, a massive gate the only way in and out. They passed through it, the general hustle and bustle of the city fading into the relative peace and quiet of St. Gildrin’s College. 

Professor Kilibrig helped Alvanue out of the carriage though she felt like she ought to be the one doing the helping. He was still breathing heavily from his run to catch her and dabbing at his sweaty face with a handkerchief. She took the opportunity to look around while the professor checked a small pocket watch with his free hand. She could see few people moving about but that was to be expected. She figured it would get a lot more crowded once classes began. The building they stopped in front of was the most medieval thing she had seen in the city yet, a sturdy bastion of mossy, pockmarked stone, with turrets and thin arrow slit windows. The professor stowed his watch away and gestured her forward. 

Noting her interest, he explained that before the royal palace was constructed several centuries past, St. Gildrin’s had once been the seat of the Lyonessean crown. While many of the halls on campus were of much more modern design, built with donations from wealthy alumni and loans from the king, the Main Hall was one of the oldest structures in all of Avalon.

“Over two millenia old and it’s hardly needed any maintenance at all. Frightfully strong enchantments on the old girl, frightfully strong,” he said, a hint of pride coloring his words. 

As they stepped into the dark interior of the hall, Alvanue unconsciously relaxed. It was much cooler inside than out. She had not realized quite how much the change in temperature had been affecting her. 

They walked under the soft glow of magelights for several minutes, the professor talking all the while, before stopping at a seemingly random door.

“Where are we going again?” Alvanue asked.

“First,” he said, “we must get you fitted for a uniform and then we’ll head down to the registrar’s office to fill out some paperwork. After that, perhaps my lady would like a tour of the campus?”

A tour would be nice, but she would prefer to poke around St. Gildrin’s without the talkative old man hovering at her side. She made a noncommittal noise while Professor Kilibrig opened the door for her.

She stepped into a comfortably furnished room with a woman as tall and thin as the professor was short and round inside. The woman smiled widely and ushered Alvanue in with a spidery hand.

“Hello, my dear, needing a uniform, are we?” she asked.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she responded, looking back at Professor Kilibrig for confirmation.

“I’ll be just outside, my lady. Good to see you, Winnifred,” he inclined his head towards the woman.

“Ta, Silban,” said Winnifred the tailor cheerily, already whipping out a measuring tape and wrapping it around Alvanue’s waist. She hummed, mumbling numbers to herself as she worked her way around Alvanue’s body. First her waist, then her chest, her arms, even her neck.

“’Scuse me, Ms. Winnifred, right?” she asked.

“Just call me Winnifred, dear, or Winnie if you like,” the tailor said, not pausing in her work for a second. 

“Okay, Winnifred then. Is this gonna take long?”

“Not at all! Why, I’m almost done!” the tailor chuckled. 

“Wait, really?” Alvanue asked skeptically. All the woman had done was take a few measurements. Now that she thought about it, Alvanue could not help but notice there was not a shred of fabric anywhere in the room but for the clothes they were wearing.

“All I need is one last bit-”, she knelt before Alvanue and held the tape against her leg, “-and that’s it!”

“That’s it? What about my uniform?”

“It’ll be sent over to that embassy you’re staying at. Now I know your size, won’t take me but an hour to have it ready.” Winnifred the tailor pressed a hand to the small of her back and all but pushed her out the door. “Now run along, I’ve sewing to do!”

Professor Kilibrig was waiting for her as he had said in the corridor, head bent once more over his watch. It snapped up at the sound of Winnie wishing Alvanue a good day.

“Always speedy, that one,” the professor said approvingly. “Right, next stop, the registrar. This way, my lady, follow me.”

She followed Professor Kilibrig down a spiral staircase at the end of the hall, leading deep into the side of the hill St. Gildrin’s was built atop. The magelights here were staggered, leaving deep pools of shadow intermittently along the steps. She could see perfectly well in the dark but with the gloom and the scent of wet stone in the air she would have thought the professor was taking her down to the dungeon rather than the college’s administrative wing. After exiting onto a dim corridor, she was shown into a stuffy office with an equally stuffy old woman sitting behind an old writing desk.

“Full legal name,” said the woman without a word of greetings. Her tone brooked no argument. 

“It’s, uh, Alvanue anonduin Sildathlene Nalendril Githanduin Silthondrim elvoquendi Endrilanduinye,” she managed to say, feeling blindsided.

“You got a shorter version of that, kid? There’s only so much room on the form,” the woman sighed. 

The nameplate on her desk read ‘Ragnell’. Alvanue could not help but think the name suited her.

“Yeah, just Alvanue Silthondrim should do,” she said, a bit embarrassed. She sat down in the only seat not otherwise occupied. She wondered if it was intentionally uncomfortable.

Ms. Ragnell pursed her lips and wrote it down. She flipped lightning fast through the stack of paperwork in front of her, quill pausing only to dip into its inkpot. The only sound in the room aside from the scratch of quill nib on parchment was the tapping of Professor Kilibrig’s little foot. 

“Alright, just need you to fill out right here and here, and sign at the bottom, and we’re done here Ms. Silthondrim,” the old woman indicated several blank spaces under dense blocks of text. Alvanue said nothing about the mispronunciation of her last name or the lack of a title. 

“What are these for?” she asked. Thumbing through them it seemed like a lot of paperwork for just one person.

“Since your acceptance was fast tracked by order of the Crown, we have to record that you did not take the college’s entrance exam,” said the professor, “And seeing as you’ve taking residence at the Concordian Embassy, we need you to acknowledge that you waive your right to a dorm room.

“The final part is some missing personal information not provided by His Majesty High Lord Githanduin when he signed you up for classes, such as medical records, personal strengths and weaknesses etcetera. That, and insurance for your, ahem, pet.” 

“My pet- oh, Snowflake? Is there going to be a problem?” she asked. 

The little troll had grown since she first rescued it, with no signs of stopping anytime soon. Already, it stood taller than a human toddler. Its fur was darkening to the same steely color as its mother’s, and its fangs were beginning to poke up through its smooth, pink gums.

“Oh, no my lady, not at all. A lot of our mage students here take on a familiar, though I cannot recall there ever being a troll at St. Gildrin’s. It’s standard policy to take out insurance on them, however, in case of any potential incidents, as magical creatures are wont to cause,” he assured her.

“I don’t really have any money on me,” she said. Not unless they accepted the bit of hard tack she had found in her pocket from her last meal on Captain Silfene’s ship. 

“Not to worry, the cost will be deducted from your account at the Royal Bank,” he said.

“Wait, I have a bank account?”

That was news to her.

“Well, yes,” the professor gave her a strange look. “His Majesty provided us with an account under your name when you were enrolled. How do you think your uniform and all of your classes were being paid for, not to mention your tuition?”

To be perfectly honest, Alvanue had not given it a thought. The side effect of living the life she did, where her only real job was making sure her sire was not too irritated with her, was that money did not really factor into her daily life. If she needed something, her family provided it, she never really considered what it cost. She did wonder why her sire had not told her about the account, however. 

Old man must’ve been worried I’d spend it all, she thought. He’s probably right.

After finishing with the forms, Professor Kilibrig asked if she wanted that tour. She begged off, pretending to feel tired from her journey and telling him she would head back to the embassy. He tried to persuade her to take one of their carriages, but she refused.

After walking her to the front of the Main Hall, he said farewell and then went off to do whatever professors of divination did when they were not teaching. She waited to make sure he was out of sight, before she ducked into the space between two buildings and began her exploration of the college.

***

The day had cooled during her time with Professor Kilibrig. The temperature was not terrible, but it would take time for her to grow accustomed to the warmer Lyonessean weather. The unfamiliar heat made her feel shaky and a little drained.

The sky was full of puffy white clouds that traced lazy paths across the sky. The thick fog from earlier had cleared enough for her to see the city below. St. Gildrin’s was fortunately not completely surrounded by the thick walls she had passed through on her way to the Main Hall; there were several fenced in ledges where one could look out over the channel to the Westernessean capitol of Suddene in the east and the neat farmland pressing up against the city walls to the south. 

She could see all of the city from the little garden she found herself in, the market below busy with merchants eager to sell their wares, a magician performing tricks for a delighted audience, and little children playing in a fountain while their mothers did laundry. It was a beautiful urban scene, and one which she might regularly have enjoyed if she was not currently pissed-off. Who knew it would be so hard to find your way around such a tiny school, she thought.

The campus itself was tiny compared to the community college she had gone to in Arizona, a little less than half a city block. Regardless, she had spent the better part of an hour exploring, but now that she was ready to actually head back to the embassy, she had no idea where to go. 

“Are you lost?” 

Alvanue turned. Sitting at a table in a pointed black hat was a girl with black hair falling in curls on either side of her very pretty face. There was something about her voice, something familiar, that Alvanue could not put her finger on.

“Is it that obvious?” she asked.

The girl smiled. 

“Only a little. Come, I’ll draw you a map,” she said, waving her over.

Alvanue walked over and sat down across from the girl, realizing what it was about her voice that had sounded so familiar. Somehow, someway, the girl sounded French. 

Wherever the girl was from, she pulled a scroll from the small bag beside her. Pushing away the papers in front of her, she unrolled it, and pulled a quill from behind her ear to dip in her inkpot. With sure strokes, she sketched out a somewhat crescent shape that must have been an outline of the school before filling in the blank space with interlacing rectangles. No wonder she had trouble finding her way back, the school’s layout looked like a kindergartener’s mad scribbling.

“And here you are,” said the girl, passing her the freshly drawn map to Alvanue with a grin. “Dorms are back that way, library’s that way, most of the common courses are taught here, mage students meet there and knight students meet there. That little ‘x’ is the gate.”

Alvanue looked it over. “Thanks, really, this is a life saver.” 

“It’s no problem at all. I’m guessing you’re new?” When Alvanue nodded, she smiled wide enough to make her blue eyes crinkle. “It’s hard to find your way around for the first few days, but after that you’ll know it like the back of your hand.”

“I hope so. I wanted to get a look at this place before classes start,” Alvanue said, “I just didn’t expect this place to be such a maze.”

“The hallways and courtyards switch places sometimes.” Seeing Alvanue’s confused face, the girl continued. “So many enchantments have built up over time that the grounds have developed a mind of their own. This your first time on campus?”

Alvanue nodded her head. 

“Thought as much. People talk and I’m sure I would’ve heard about any elves here. I’m Viviane, Viviane Gorgagne.” The girl, Viviane, held out her hand and Alvanue accepted it happily. 

“Alvanue,” she said. 

“I’ve never met an elf before,” Viviane’s voice was distracted as she took in Alvanue’s silvery hair and the long ears that poked out from it.  
“I’ve never met someone from France before,” she said without thinking. 

Viviane’s brow bunched into a puzzled frown. “France? I’m from Rettinsbourg, where is France?”

“Uh, it’s- never mind, it’s not important,” Alvanue said, flustered. She saw a wand sticking out of Viviane’s bag and jumped at the chance to change the conversation. “So, you’re in the Mage Program?”

Viviane was slow to answer, looking at Alvanue with puzzled eyes. “Yes. I’m a second year with a focus on summoning. Which program are you in?”

Alvanue did not know all that much about summoners aside from the basics. They were specialized mages that worked their magic with the aid of spirit helpers, though she was not quite sure what that entailed. Most elves followed enchanting and sorcery traditions, which is what her parents and that old monster Uruigith had based her brief education on. 

“Same as you. My dad wants me to be a mage and I don’t have any problems with that, so here I am,” she said.

“Have you thought about what your focus might be?” Viviane asked. 

Focuses had been mentioned in the letters from the college her sire let her read and they seemed equivalent to ‘majors’ on Earth. In her opinion, a focus on enchanting seemed like the best fit for her. The idea of being able to craft and customize her own implements, maybe even a set of armor, was extremely intriguing. The possibilities were endless. For the moment, though, she thought it best not to make any rash decisions and wait to see what other choices were available to her. 

“A little, yeah, but I think I’ll keep my options open.”

“Smart,” Viviane said approvingly, “the Dean doesn’t like students changing their focus unless they have a really good reason. Pretty pigheaded about it, actually.”

Alvanue thought back on the plump little man that had chased her and Edhalan down in the street just a few hours before. “Really? He didn’t seem the type when I met him.”

“’He’? Oh, you’re talking about Professor Kilibrig. He likes to call himself the ‘Dean of Magical Studies’ or whatever, but he’s just the Director of the Mage Program. Teaches divination too, I’m pretty sure.” Viviane’s dark, shiny curls bounced as she shook her head. “No, I’m talking about Dean Felwyck, the dragon herself. If you haven’t met her yet, you will tomorrow at the welcoming ceremony.”

Alvanue hesitated. “Is she…that bad?”

“Oh, she can be an absolute shryke when she wants to be, but overall, she’s not too terrible. She’s just very set in her ways. And stubborn. Did I mention she likes things to go her way?” said Viviane, a teasing smile tugging at her lips. 

“Think I got the picture.” Alvanue said, unable to hold back her answering smile. 

“But seriously, the Dean and a lot of the other professors here are going to pressure you to choose a focus in the first couple weeks but stay strong. It’s better to wait and choose something you’re passionate about rather than jump the wand and end up stuck with something you hate,” the girl cautioned.

They talked for a bit more, Alvanue thanking her for the map and Viviane sharing more advice. When she stood up to leave, Viviane caught her wrist in a neatly manicured hand. 

“One last thing. Some of the summer kids are sneaking out to grab a drink tonight. I was thinking…maybe you want to go?”

Alvanue stood there dumbstruck for a second before catching herself and nodding. If one excluded the stuffy dinners organized by her parents, this was the first party she had been invited to in the past thirty years. Even as a kid in Arizona, the number of birthdays and kickbacks she had gone to could be counted on one hand.

“Yeah. Yes. Where are you guys going?” she asked, trying not to sound too eager. 

“The Hangman. It’s a bit of a dump but the ale’s cheap and it stays open until late,” said Viviane.

“Cool,” a smile split Alvanue’s face, “where should I meet you guys?”

“Just tell me what dorm you’re in. I can come by and pick you up at a quarter bell after sundown,” said Viviane.

Alvanue shifted from foot to foot. “Actually, I’m not in any of the dorms. I live off-campus.”

The human girl blinked at her. 

“Oh. Well, then, write down your address and I’ll swing by on my way to the Hangman.”

***

“You’re staying at the Concordian Embassy?” 

The streets had grown quiet as the hour grew late, the usual daily traffic replaced by the odd carriage and evening pedestrian. Viviane stood alone and wide eyed at the front gate of the embassy. She had traded her somewhat plain school uniform for a dark blue dress, matching cape and black leather gloves. 

“Yeah. Pretty nice place, right?” said Alvanue. Her desire to look nice had warred with her embarrassment at the idea of wearing a formal dress to a dive bar, so she compromised: she had chosen a black tunic with matching pants, and a purple velvet cloak. Simple, tasteful, but not nice enough as to look over dressed.

“Who are you again?” Viviane asked. 

Edhalan, of course, chose that instant to join them. He had heard that she was going out with Viviane and her group of friends and had insisted on joining. ‘You’ll probably get in a brawl and get killed because you can’t fight for shit and then I’m gonna get killed by His Majesty for failing to protect you, so, I’m coming with.’ 

“You have the honor of addressing the Lady-” he began.

“Ahhhh bsshhhhh zip it!” she said and slapped a hand over her friend’s mouth. “I’m Alvanue, just Alvanue, and this is Edhalan. He goes by Eddie for short, isn’t that right, Eddie?”

Being the extremely petty elf that he was, Edhalan licked her palm in retaliation. She snatched it back with a sound of disgust and wiped off his spit with a corner of her cloak. 

It was not that she was trying to hide who she was, but at the same time, if her classmates realized that she was the heir potential to an Elven Realm things might get weird between them. She wanted the opportunity to make friends before news of her real identity spread around the school.

Viviane’s narrowed eyes flicked between the two of them for a second before she spoke.

“…Right.” She said. “Well, the others should already be at the inn. Let’s not keep them waiting.”

They made their way down the street, drawing some strange looks from the few nighttime travelers they encountered. Even so close the embassy, few humans had ever seen an elf up close. Edhalan stared rudely back until Alvanue elbowed him in the ribs. 

Freezing fog had rolled in from the channel as the last lingering rays of the sunlight faded in the west. While Viviane shivered against the chill, Alvanue felt energized. Edhalan seemed to feel the same, his step picking up a bit of a bounce as they set off into night-shrouded Avalon. Following Viviane, they traded the well-lit High Street of Castle Hill for the labyrinthine back alleys and side streets of Granfield Market. It was down one of these alleys, so narrow they had to walk single file, that they found the inn.

The Hangman looked half dilapidated from the outside, a narrow building squished between a row of shops and the wall separating the two districts from each other. The cartoonishly bad outline of a man hanging from a rope was painted in white on a sign nailed out front, the only indication that this was indeed the Hangman Inn rather than some condemned townhouse. 

Alvanue and Edhalan shared an apprehensive look but allowed themselves to be herded inside by their fellow human. 

It was hot and cramped within, but surprisingly clean considering. Splintery but thoroughly scrubbed tables filled most of the open space of the main floor, which was covered in a layer of fresh reeds to soak up any spills, with a small, well-kept bar to the right-hand side. There were few patrons but enough for the small space to feel almost claustrophobic if it were not for the high ceilings, lit by a weak magelight and wall sconces. A stairwell shared wall space with the bar, leading up to the inn’s dark second story. From the back corner, a group of young humans spotted Viviane and waved her over.

“Took ya long enough!” said a red-haired boy with a thick scar across the bridge of his nose.

“Vee!” gleefully shouted what looked like a small hairy girl. At second glance, the girl appeared to be a dwarf. Her eyes and nose barely peaked up over the edge of the table, but she waved her hands excitedly when she saw Viviane.

“Here, grab some of those chairs, we’ll scoot over to make room,” said the last of the three. She towered over her two companions, broad shoulders thick with muscle and her skin a pale shade of green. An orc, thought Alvanue with interest. 

The three of them were drunk or well on their way to it going by the many empty mugs littering the table. 

As Viviane worked her way through introductions, the dwarf, Thisby, stood on her chair in order to snag the red head Adair’s ale. She was in the same class as Viviane, a second year in the Mage Program. He was in the Knight Program, a second year as well. He reclaimed his drink and chugged it down indignantly. Thisby was hardly upset and pointed at the foam mustache left on his upper lip with a shriek of laughter. Ula, who Viviane explained was a half-orc, seemed to be the most sober of the group, regardless of the fact that she was drinking straight from a pitcher. She was also the odd one out in that she was the only third year of the group. 

As they snatched a few chairs from an unoccupied table, Ula called a barmaid over and ordered another round of drinks. Thisby was insistent that they catch up and egged Viviane on to drain her first mug in one go.

They spent a while just chatting amongst themselves. Alvanue happy enough to listen while the four friends discussed the end of the summer session and gossiped about people she did not know. Eventually, after the four had their fill of school drama, talk turned to Alvanue herself. 

“So, Alvanue, huh?” Adair grumbled after a lull in the conversation.

“Shut up,” Thisby interjected before turning to her. While everyone talked, she had climbed up from her chair to sit crossed legged on the tabletop. “So, which one of the Realms are you from?” 

Alvanue had never seen a dwarf in person before and, while she did not want to seem rude, could not help staring just a little. Thisby had a lot of energy for such a tiny thing, big dark eyes shiny and intent as she stared back at Alvanue with equal curiosity. The dwarf probably stood no higher than two feet. She was wearing long sleeves and pants but from what Alvanue could see, it looked as if she were covered from head to toe in curly brown hair but for her palms and face. The tuft of hair on her chin was braided and the little bell tied to the end tinkled whenever she moved. Her ears were pointed like Alvanue’s but stubbier, shaped more like leaves than the long blade-like ears of the elves. Thisby looked very much like a stuffed animal Alvanue had as a little kid, and she had the strangest urge to reach out and squeeze the dwarf in a bear hug. 

“I’m from Endrillond, way up north past the Sea of Stars,” she said.

“Oooh, a Moon Elf, huh? Never met one of them before,” said Thisby.

“Met many elves, have you?” asked Ula with a grin. 

“Well, not lots, but a couple Light Elves come by the workshops in Hrogaaz at least once a year,” the dwarf explained. 

“Why?” asked Viviane.

“There’s a bunch of research projects they collaborate on with the guilds. I can’t remember his name, but one of them stayed with my moms and I for a month or two while he and my parents pitched one of their inventions to the Council. Nice guy, real quiet.”

“I thought Dwarves were pretty protective of their inventions,” said Ula. Alvanue noted that she had drained a second pitcher by herself while everyone was talking. 

“Yeah, with humans. No offense Vee, Addie, but your people just don’t have minds meant for tech. Light Elves? They live and breathe machinery, their heads are jammed full of cogs and wheels just as much as Dwarves’ are, and unlike humans they don’t get greedy with their discoveries.”

Viviane shrugged the insult off as mild as it was, but Adair’s forehead wrinkled in displeasure. 

“So,” Thisby continued, “what’s with Mr. Tall and Silent?”

Edhalan looked nonchalant as four pairs of eyes fixed on him, but Alvanue could tell he was uncomfortable from the tight line of his lips. Either that, or he was still getting over being sea-sick for two weeks straight. 

Out of all of them, he looked the most out of place in the rugged inn. Instead of dressing down like she had, he wore his usual chain mail and a hood with her family crest on the back. With a short sword at his hip, he looked more ready for battle rather than a night out on the town.

“He’s my childhood friend,” Alvanue said. It was not technically a lie.

Edhalan gave her a look as if to say, really?

“I am Lady Alvanue’s sworn guard,” he said.

That garnered a few raised eyebrows. 

“Oooh, so you’re from one of the great families, then? Haven’t heard of normal elves needing a bodyguard,” said Thisby, tapping her chin. “Strange, though. I didn’t think elven nobility let their kids out of their sight for anything.”

“That’s why you’re staying at the embassy.” Realization dawned on Viviane’s pretty face, already flushed with alcohol. 

“What embassy?” asked Adair. His eyes were glazed and his cheeks just as pink as Viviane’s. 

“You know, the Concordian Embassy? Big fancy building, like, just down the road from school, ‘s got a bunch of elves going in and out all the time?”

Adair’s face twisted. “Oh. That embassy.”

“Do you have a problem with the Concord, human?” asked Edhalan imperiously. 

“No. I just think it’s a stupid country full of stupid elves,” said the red-haired boy. To add insult to injury, he let out a belch in Edhalan’s face and laughed.

Alvanue shot a nervous glance at her friend. He was to be doing an exceptionally good job of not reacting with violence, considering his view of humans. A muscle working in his clenched jaw as he wiped Adair’s spittle off his face was the only sign of his agitation. Thisby started scolding Adair while the other two girls stared wide eyed at the elves, as if waiting to see what they would do.

“Uh,” Alvanue said, trying to think of a way to deescalate the situation.

“Don’t tell me whadda do! Lemme go!” Adair shouted over Thisby’s remonstrations. 

“Sorry about him, he didn’t mean it. He’s just a nasty drunk,” Viviane laughed lamely. 

Adair swept an accusatory finger at his friends. “Just ‘cause you lot wanna cozy up to these tree fuckers doesn’t mean I gotta. I mean, what’s so good about elves anyway? They think they’re so much better than us mortals, but they’re not! They caused the Sundering an’ they’re the reason Albion fell apart, that’s what my da says. I mean, they’re not even born normal and they don’t die normal, neither. They’re just like demons when you think on it!” 

Edhalan reacted instantly to that, all pretense at calm cast aside. The force with which he stood sent his chair skidding back to slam into a neighboring table. The rest of the group sat in shocked silence, both at Adair’s words and the fury that lit Edhalan’s eyes with cold fire.

“Child, you’re either very brave or very stupid.” He said, voice gone flat and deadly, “As I’m sure the ale is somewhat to blame, I will give you two choices: apologize, now, or taste my steel,” 

“Fuck you, stupid knife ear! I ain’t apologizing for shit,” slurred Adair. Thisby and Viviane gasped as the boy went to lunge at Edhalan over the table. Ula reached forward and pushed him back into his chair with a hard shove while the other two girls started yelling at him.

“Then I challenge you to an honor duel,” said Edhalan, hand tightening on the pommel of his sword. 

“Edhalan, come on, he’s drunk and like a third your age, just let it go dude,” Alvanue said in elvish. 

“I can’t. Didn’t you hear him? I gave him the chance to apologize and he threw it in my face. No. He’ll pay for his insult.” He tugged himself free of her hand, which she had reached out to take hold of his sword arm.

“He’s just some stupid kid who’s blitzed out of his mind!” she argued. 

While she was trying to talk her friend down, Viviane and the others were doing the same with Adair. He managed to slip loose of Ula’s grasp and pull free the bastard sword at his hip. “Bring it on, elf, I could take you any day of the week.”

“Addie, don’t be an idiot! Ula, grab him before he makes an ass of himself again!” Thisby was frantically hopping up and down on the table.  
“No can do,” Ula shook her head, heavy shoulders slumping with regret, “he already accepted the challenge. It would be shameful to intervene, no matter how much I want to.”

At that point they had drawn the attention of most of the Hangman’s patrons, most of which got up to follow Edhalan and Adair as the two headed out into the street. Alvanue was slower to join the rest, pushing up out of her chair once the Hangman was mostly empty with a sigh. This, she thought, is gonna be brutal. 

When she stepped outside, she saw that the crowd had formed a loose semi-circle around the boys. Adair was noticeably unsteady on his feet, swaying under the influence of the half dozen mugs of ale sloshing around in his stomach. Edhalan, however, slipped into an easy battle stance with his feet planted firmly apart and legs sturdy, the perfect picture of a duelist at his prime. He bowed only as low as courtesy demanded before snapping upright to unsheathe his sword. Adair, Alvanue noted, did not return the gesture.

Adair gave his sword, an ugly length of pitted steal, a cocky twirl. The swing went wide as he fumbled it in the air clumsily. Edhalan stared at him calmly as he stalked around the perimeter of their impromptu dueling grounds. His blade caught the dim light of the alley, the elvish metal shining eerily under the moon. They continued like that for a tense second until Adair sneered and rushed forward. 

He jabbed at Edhalan, but he aimed too high to do any real damage even if he had struck true. Edhalan ducked easily out of the way and slashed at the human boy’s free arm. Steel cut easily through the rough weave of Adair’s shirt with the sound of tearing flesh. The boy jolted back, old instincts cutting through the drunken haze at the first sign of real danger. He looked down at his ruined sleeve blankly before turning angry eyes on Edhalan, who stood tensed and ready several feet away. 

Making a hacking sound deep in his throat, Adair spit to the side and lifted his sword once more. This time, however, Edhalan took the lead. Dropping into a low crouch, the elf kicked off the damp cobblestone and came at Adair like a shot.

The boy, caught off guard, scrabbled back as he moved his sword up in an attempt to parry Edhalan’s coming blow. The elf struck once, twice, thrice, hitting hard. His third swipe was strong enough to knock Adair’s weapon out of his hand. The sword went skidding along the cobblestone until it disappeared into shadow.

All his previous swagger gone, the human fell back on his palms with a grunt. Edhalan’s sword flicked forward to point at him as the audience shouted out in alarm. They had come to see blood spilt yet when the time came, few seemed to have the stomach for it. Viviane tried to go to Adair, but Ula held her back. The half-orc shook her head once and Viviane relented miserably. 

With a quick motion of his hand, Edhalan swung the tip of his sword at Adair’s face. Thisby yelped, but the boy remained dead silent, his eyes scrunched shut against what he believed to be his certain doom. Death never came, however, and he spent a moment like that before cautiously opening first one and then both of his eyes.

Edhalan had not gone for the delicate hollow of his throat, or his unprotected armpit. He had ignored all the inebriated human’s obvious weak spots in favor of Adair’s nose. With the expertise of a master, the elf had cut only deep enough to open a thin red line tracing over the bridge of the boy’s nose, perfectly echoing the scar across it. Adair’s face, which had been nearly as red as his hair before the duel even began, went white as blood beaded along the cut. 

“Yield,” Edhalan commanded as he stared down at his felled opponent and leveled his sword between the boy’s eyes.

Adair nodded jerkily, going crossed-eyes as he stared at the weapon centimeters away from his face. Edhalan stepped back and wiped his blade clean as Ula came over to haul her friend off the snowy ground. Thisby and Viviane rushed forward as the crowd began to disperse.

“It's time to go, Alvanue,” he said to her and she nodded hesitantly. 

She looked over at Viviane, kneeling next to Adair while the girl’s other two friends fretted over the shaken boy. A sigh escaped her lips. This is gonna make things so awkward tomorrow, she thought glumly, and to think, I’d just made a new friend here. She fell in line behind Edhalan as they retraced their steps back to the embassy. 

And so, Alvanue’s life at St. Gildrin’s College began.


End file.
